Gender Stereotypes in Advertisements for Men Politicians: Longitudinal Evidence from Greece

Gender Stereotypes in Advertisements for Men Politicians: Longitudinal Evidence from Greece Abstract The present study employs a longitudinal approach in order to investigate the use of gender stereotypes in print political advertisements of men candidates for parliamentary seats in Greece. For the purpose of the research, a sample of 863 advertisements of 20 daily national and local Greek newspapers issued between 1993 and 2009 was content analysed. The results of the study indicate that the predominant gender stereotypes in political advertising throughout the period in question were those of the successful and the dynamic male politician. The study revealed, however, that a definite change in the predominant stereotypes took place over the course of the period, there being a gradual shift towards the presentation of gender egalitarian, male figures. While in commercial advertising gender stereotypes have been extensively examined, there is a dearth of research on their manifestation in political advertising. KEYWORDS: Gender stereotypes, political advertising, men candidates, content analysis 1 1. INTRODUCTION Political advertising is one of the major tools of political marketing. Growing feelings of political cynicism, and a low involvement in politics by a significant portion of the electorate dispirit any active interest in news sources, which, in turn encourages and glamorizes political advertising as a critical form of communication between candidates’ and voters (Kaid 1999; O’Cass 2005; Biocca 2013). Through advertising, the political candidate seeks to persuade or remind voters of his candidacy and, chiefly, to influence them positively in order to win their votes (Lees-Marshment 2009; Shen 2012). The sponsor of political advertising varies between countries, depending on the electoral system. For instance, in countries like the U.S.Α. and France, voters have to choose between candidates who are standing for president as well as for other representatives, whereas in countries like Greece or the Netherlands, voters have to choose between the different political parties and their parliamentary candidates (Negrine and Papathanassopoulos 1996; Cheibub and Limongi 2002). Hence, in presidential systems political advertising campaigns focus on the image of presidential candidates, whereas in parliamentary systems (such as in the Greek electoral system) political parties develop national political campaigns. In addition, as far as the parliamentary systems are concerned, candidates who wish to enter the parliament develop political advertisements, usually aired by the local media, in order to influence voters in their constituencies. Unlike other sources, such as political interviews and debates, advertising is an unmediated form of communication, which means that the content of the message is under the absolute control of the sponsor (Kaid 1997; Samaras and Papathanassopoulos 2006; Strach et al. 2015). This allows the politician to carefully construct a desired image, and thus promote his/her candidacy with optimum effectiveness to particular target groups (O’Cass 2002). Considering though that many people find political information complicated and difficult to process, the use of schemas may facilitate their processing and retention of information about candidates (Chang and Hitchon 2004). In this context, the candidate selects messages, verbal or visual, that are inter alia compatible with the convictions and expectations of the voters he or she is addressing (O’Cass 2002; Robinson 2010; Arendt et al. 2015). Gender schemas, or gender stereotypes, that represent a category of traits, attributes and behaviours commonly associated with men and women (Kittilson and Fridkin 2008; Wagner et al. 2017) fall among the general schemas. In that sense, by capitalizing on the existing gender stereotypes, a candidate may relate to the positions, characteristics, behaviour and even the appearance of the ideal 2 politician (Kahn 1996; Sanbonmatsu 2002; Turska-Kawa and Olszanecka-Marmola 2016). The present study examines this general proposition, by endeavouring to fill the following research gaps. The use of gender stereotypes in advertising has received significant academic attention, counting more than 50 years of research (Gauntlett 2002; Wolin 2003; Zotos and Tsichla 2014). Most research focuses on women’s portrayals, propelled by the feminist movement and the evolution of gender roles in contemporary western societies (Stern 1999; Zotos and Tsichla 2014). Several studies investigate men’s portrayals together with women’s ones as a frame of reference (Zotos and Lysonski 1994; Hatzithomas et al. 2016); few studies though concentrate exclusively on men’s representations (e.g. Kervin 1990; Patterson and England 2000). Gender portrayals in the political advertising arena have attracted limited attention by the academic community. A few exceptions include the studies by Kahn and Goldenberg (1991), Huddy and Terkildsen (1993), Sanbonmatsu (2002), Fridkin and Kenney (2009) and Sanghvi and Hodges (2015) that provide evidence of the use of gender stereotypes in U.S. politics and the studies by Fox and Smith (1998), Gordon et al. (2003), Fox and Lawless (2004), Smith et al. (2005) and Lee (2014) that concentrate on the effects of gender stereotypes on voters’ advertising perceptions and attitudes. Given the millions of dollars spent annually on political advertising (Hoegg and Lewis 2011), the need for further investigation in the field of gender stereotypes in political advertising has to be stressed (Johnston and Kaid 2002; Fridkin and Kenney 2009). Moreover, the majority of prior studies were of North American or Western European origin (Lee 2014) and as such further research is needed in other countries. There is an ongoing debate among scholars over whether or not candidates should carry gender-congruent traits and issues (Lee 2014). A stream of research suggests that congruity between candidates’ gender and their personality traits can increase voters’ favourable evaluations (Herrnson et al. 2003; Banwart and McKinney 2005; Lee 2014), whereas a second group of studies supports the notion that gendered information does not affect voters’ attitudes (Bystrom and Kaid 2002; Bystrom et al. 2004). Though adequate research has been devoted to the effects of gendered information on voters’ attitudes, there is no evidence on how parliamentary candidates use gender stereotypes (in a congruent or incongruent manner) to make inferences about their issue positions. Large-scale societal transitions and technological developments influence the long-term changes of political advertising campaign practices (Magin et al. 2017). The growing number of non- 3 voters, swing voters, populist parties as well as the increasing party competition have significantly influenced the content of advertising (Biocca 2013; Magin et al. 2017). Despite broad consensus in the literature that political advertising is constantly changing (Blumler and Kavanagh 1999; Blumler 2016), there is a dearth of longitudinal research primarily designed to understand these alterations. Hence, a longitudinal approach would be expected to yield important insights regarding the possible changes in the frequency of the use of different stereotypes projected over time (Carlson 2001). This study seeks to fill the void in the literature, by providing evidence from the Greek context. The purpose of the research is to investigate the manifestation of stereotypical portrayals in print advertisements of men parliamentary candidates in Greece over the period 1993-2009. Particularly, by analysing the status quo and monitoring potential changes in the stereotypical patterns, the study seeks to answer the following two questions: (a) what are the common stereotypes employed in print advertisements of male parliamentary candidates, and (b) what are the changes in the depiction of these stereotypes over the period studied. A better understanding of the interplay between societal alterations and the use of gender stereotypes in political advertising would provide researchers, politicians and advertisers with a more complete and detailed picture of trends in gendered political advertising. The structure of the paper is as follows: Firstly, this paper begins with a review of the existing literature on gender stereotypes in political advertising. Next, the methodology of the study is thoroughly analysed, followed by the presentation of the findings and their relevance to the existing literature. The paper concludes with a summary of the key insights of the study, the acknowledgement of the limitations and the provision of directions for future research. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Gender stereotypes and Advertising A stereotype is a representation of a social group emphasising a characteristic or a set of characteristics that may project a standardised image, whether it be correct or false, of that group (Moriarty et al. 2009). Stereotypes use easily understood, symbolic signs that are accepted by the majority of the members of a community, and they refer to a specific social context and time frame. In that sense, they 4 represent social constructs that affect how the members of a society perceive other individuals or social groups (Gauntlett 2002). Gender stereotypes are general beliefs about gender-related qualities and roles associated with psychological characteristics and behaviours of men and women (Browne 1998). According to Van Zoonen (1996), the meaning of gender is not constant, but varies with

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